Killer Drones, Jamming Jets Win Big in New Pentagon Budget

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Killer Drones, Jamming Jets Win Big in New Pentagon Budget

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' plan to trim around $100 billion from Pentagon accounts over the next five years – the details of which he announced today – is being billed as a budget cut. Actually, Gates' latest (and likely last) budget exercise represents a net boost for stuff that flies, swims, crawls and shoots. Especially the things that fly.

New fleets of retooled fighter jets, futuristic bombers, jamming planes, and advanced drones will all take to the skies, if Gates gets his way.

The Navy will get a fresh batch of Boeing-built F/A-18E/F Super Hornets plus structural upgrades to 150 older Hornets that otherwise would start dropping out of the sky. This should help keep carrier decks full while the sea service awaits the 2016 arrival of the "navalized" version of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Plus, the Navy will get cash to accelerate its long-awaited Next-Generation Jammer, a new electronic noisemaker packed into an under-wing pod. The Navy's new EA-18G Growler jamming planes will use the Next-Generation Jammer to fill enemy radar screens with random radar returns, hopefully disguising the movements of real airplanes as they sneak in to attack. To date, the Growler (pictured) has borrowed old ALQ-99 jammer pods from the EA-6B Prowler it is replacing. Both the ALQ-99 and the Prowler are more than 30 years old.

A new jamming pod might sound like an obscure initiative. It's not. Recall that, two years ago, U.S. regional commanders urged Gates to cancel the F-22 Raptor fighter so they could afford to buy more Growlers. Turns out, jamming enemy radars is really, really important to U.S. war plans.

Perhaps most importantly, the Navy will now get extra funding for its X-47 killer drone. The first of the Northrop Grumman-made bots is now in California preparing for its first flight. If all goes well, the X-47 could eventually produce a stealthy, long-range, robotic bomber for the Navy's carriers.

This, too, is a really, really big deal. Before he became Navy undersecretary two years ago, Robert Work advocated more funding in 2007 for the X-47, also known as the Naval Unmanned Combat Air System, or N-UCAS.

"Incorporating N-UCAS into future [carrier air wings] will transform the aircraft carrier ... into a global long-range, persistent surveillance-strike system effective across multiple 21st century security challenges," Work preached. With Gates' announcement, it's clear the Pentagon has been converted.

The Air Force will see more money pour into radar upgrades for the 400-strong F-15 fighter force, giving the venerable jet roughly the same "eyes" as the newer, stealthier but less numerous F-22.

At the same time, the air branch will receive more resources to buy and operate MQ-9 Reaper drones. For the first time, Reapers will be funded from the base budget, rather than unpredictable war supplementals.

But the biggest change for the Air Force is the go-ahead to design and build a new, manned bomber. This represents the second attempt in just five years to get a new bomber program off the ground. The previous, "2018 bomber" – named for the year it was supposed to enter service – crashed and burned after the Air Force overloaded it with risky, pricey new gizmos.

The reborn bomber "will be designed and developed using proven technologies, an approach that should make it possible to deliver this capability on schedule and in quantity," Gates said. That probably means around 100 new planes, appearing in around 15 years.

If Congress approves all of Gates' changes – and that's a big if – a few big programs will go away and command staffs and other overhead will shrink. But air forces – already the source of America's greatest advantage – will actually grow.